The production speed presently available in steel bars hot-rolling plants is about 35 m/sec. Such speed is difficult to increase. The main cause of this is the stand-off forced by the receiving of the rolling bars downstream of a well known "flying shear machine". A bar is sent on one side of the shear machine, and another bar on the other side into a known receiving and discharging device comprising channelled rotating drums having four externally open channels on each drum. After receiving a bar in a channel of each respective drum, the drums alternately discharge the bars downward, via rotation, onto an underlying cooling bed.
Increasing the speed of this receiving and discharging device which works very well and is reliable, was up to now practically impossible because of the time associated with rotating the drums to move the respective receiving channel from a receiving position to a discharge position at which the bar is discharged, and then using the same channel for receiving the following bar after rotation of the drums. Attempts to increase the speed were made, but produced only a solution for forwarding and discharging two bars together (SPLIT art).
This art is well described in the Italian patent in the name of the same applicant IT-83489A/88. This solution however requires discharging two bars at a time onto the underlying cooling bed with risk of tangling. Additionally, this method is complex, requiring the crossing of the channels of the two drums.